90 SOCIAL SCIENTIST that the former would always be able to solve the conflicts through temporising compromise and partial concessions and keep the latter tagged on to its own chariot wheel. Nor does it mean that the battle of the working class and the toiling peasants and the working middle classes would always be necessarily opposed by the small and medium businessmen. All that it does imply is that in normal conditions, the big bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state can continue to soften and partially solve this contradiction through concessions and compromises and continue to breed illusions among the other sections. It would be only when the political crisis matures in the wake of the economic showdown that conflicts would sharpen beyond concessions and when the proletariat and the working peasantry and their allies move forward to the offensive in their struggle for political power, that the small bourgeoisie would begin -to see that their interest lies in supporting this struggle, or at least remaining neutral. And then alone the state facing the assault of the proletariat and toiling peasants and their allies would really be reduced to the level of the state of the big and monopoly bourgeoisie.2 Of course the role the non-monopoly and non-big bourgeoisie would eventually play, once the socialist transformation begins, with the capture of the state power by the urban and rural proletarians and semi-proletarians and their allies, is another matter. It is hoped that the position taken in the present paper would not be equated with the all too familiar Trotskyite position of refusal to recognise stages of revolution, each with its own pattern of class alignments. 1 This reference should by no means be taken to imply that the present writer accepts the recently coined and popularised concept of the non-capitalist path. 2 Indeed the monopoly bourgeoisie may, at this stage be also forced to seek a closer alliance with feudal and semi-feudal interests and imperialism and make substantial concessions to them, including share in state power and policies.